Trees c. 1916

Charles Demuth made this drawing of trees with graphite on paper. Look at how the lines are barely there, like he was trying to capture the faintest whisper of the trees. I can almost feel him, bending over the page, squinting his eyes, trying to get it just right. You know, drawing trees is hard. They're so complicated, all those branches and leaves. It’s a process of searching for the right line, erasing, and starting again. And the texture of the paper probably had a say in things too. It's all about finding the essence, the feeling of being surrounded by those trees, the way their branches reach up to the sky. It reminds me a bit of Guston's late drawings, or maybe Agnes Martin's subtle grids, where it's all about the gesture and the mark, each one carrying so much weight. Artists just keep looking at each other’s work, thinking, 'Yeah, I see what you're doing, and I'm gonna try something like that myself.' It’s an ongoing conversation through mark making.